Harris County Public Library - Molochhttp://www.hcpl.net/taxonomy/term/2320/0
enDealing with the Devil and Other Ill-Advised Undertakingshttp://www.hcpl.net/content/dealing-devil-and-other-ill-advised-undertakings
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<strong><img align="left" alt="Cover Art: The Doré Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy" height="126" hspace="3" src="http://www.syndetics.com/index.aspx?type=xw12&amp;isbn=048623231X/LC.GIF&amp;client=harrisp&amp;upc=&amp;oclc=" width="90" />From the Department of No One Asked Me, But...</strong><br />
I was re-reading parts of Dante&#39;s <strong><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=The%20divine%20comedy%20dante&amp;index=.GH#focus">Divine Comedy</a> </strong>last week and remembered why I had always felt so uneasy about the experience my first time through. Here&#39;s the thing: Hell is...well, How should I&nbsp;put this?...a <em>heck</em> of a lot more fun (to read, at least) than <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=purgatory&amp;index=.GH#focus"><strong>Purgatory</strong></a> and <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=earthly%20paradise&amp;index=.GH#focus"><strong>Paradise</strong></a>. The <strong><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=inferno%20dante&amp;index=.GH#focus">Inferno</a></strong> is fairly brimming with pleasingly <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=marquis%20de%20sade&amp;index=.GH#focus">sadistic</a> little set pieces</p>
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--as any good <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=hop%20frog%20computer%20file&amp;index=.GH#focus">revenge fantasy</a> should be. For those of you who haven&#39;t taken the grande tour yet, I can tell you without spoiling the ending that a whole lot of the <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=teletubbies%20pbs&amp;index=.GH#focus">tormented souls</a> that Dante, and his running buddy, <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=poems%20virgil%20james%20rhoades&amp;index=.GH#focus">Virgil</a>, stumble upon &quot;down there&quot; are folks who managed to get on Dante&#39;s bad side up here. And from what I&#39;ve read. it was much easier to do that than it was to stay on his <em>good</em> side. Poets being what they are, Dante took quill to parchment and consigned&nbsp;people all to the fiery furnace instead of taking his&nbsp;sword to the sternum of&nbsp;some hapless Florentine&nbsp;who <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=defensive%20driving%20course&amp;index=.GH#focus">cut him off</a> in traffic.</p>
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<strong>And Now, Some Thoughts on the Subject from a Short, Middle-Aged British Man:</strong><br />
It&#39;s not the torment of the flames / That finally see your flesh corrupted / It&#39;s the small humiliations that your memory piles up.<br />
--<a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=elvis%20costello%20and%20the%20attractions&amp;index=.GH#focus">Elvis Costello</a>, &quot;This is Hell&quot;</p>
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<strong>A Leisurely Stroll Among the Damned</strong>:<img align="right" alt="Cover Art: Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe" height="157" hspace="3" src="http://www.syndetics.com/index.aspx?type=xw12&amp;isbn=9780451527790/LC.GIF&amp;client=harrisp&amp;upc=&amp;oclc=" width="100" /><br />
Sure, Dante and Virgil idle past oodles of souls suffering all manner of unspeakable tortures while discussing some pretty esoteric <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=medieval%20theology&amp;index=.GH#focus">theology</a> and parsing the intricacies of medieval <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=christendom%20and%20christianity%20in%20the%20middle%20ages&amp;index=.TH#focus">religious practice</a> (which depending on how you feel about such things seems rather callous, or extremely appropriate). The reason the <strong>Inferno</strong> speaks to many of us more deeply&nbsp;than the other two books of the <strong>Comedy</strong> is that it is grounded in our human-ness, our bodily beings, our <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=fear%20a%20cultural%20history&amp;index=.GH#focus">fears</a>, our <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=self%20help%20guilt&amp;index=.GH#focus">guilt</a> feelings, our desire to see wickedness <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=crime%20and%20punishment%20dostoevsky&amp;index=.GH#focus">punished</a>. While <strong>Paradiso</strong>, and to a lesser extent, <strong>Purgatorio</strong>, are so chockfull of symbolism and canto upon canto of head-clutching rapture, it always seemed to me that I would need every second of eternity and all the available <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=divine%20light&amp;index=.GH#focus">divine light</a> I could gather to sort it all out.</p>
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None of the above is meant to dissuade you from reading all three books of the <strong>Comedy</strong>. It is one of the greatest feats of imaginative literature ever produced. It is a <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=gothic%20cathedral&amp;index=.GH#focus">gothic cathedral </a>in <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=turco%20book%20of%20forms&amp;index=.GH#focus">terza rima</a>, and unlike Hell, it is a place one never gets to the bottom of.</p>
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We all may be steering, as best we can, toward those pearly gates, but the fact is, the devil is a lot more fun to wr<img align="right" alt="Cover Art: The Inferno. edited and trans. by Robert M. Durling" height="153" hspace="3" src="http://www.syndetics.com/index.aspx?type=xw12&amp;isbn=9780195087406/LC.GIF&amp;client=harrisp&amp;upc=&amp;oclc=" width="100" />ite about. Just ask the folks below...um...on the page...below <em>on the page</em>--not, you know, <em>below</em> below).<br />
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<strong><a href="http:/%2/catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=divine%20comedy%20john%20ciardi&amp;index=.GH#focus">The Divine Comedy</a> </strong>by Dante Alighieri<strong><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=moses,%20gerard%20book%20of%20job&amp;index=.GH#focus"><br />
The Book of Job</a></strong> (e-audiobook)<br />
&quot;Two Hours in Reservoir&quot; from <strong><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=collected%20poems%20in%20english%20joseph%20brodsky&amp;index=.GH#focus">The Collected Poems in English</a> </strong>by <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=brodsky,%20joseph&amp;index=.GH#focus">Joseph Brodsky</a><br />
&quot;For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen&quot; from <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=complete%2%20poems%20and%20selected%20letters%20of%20hart%20crane&amp;index=.GH#focus"><strong>The Complete Poems and Selected Letters of </strong><strong>Hart Crane</strong> </a><strong><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=faust%20a%20tragedy&amp;index=.TH#focus"><br />
Faust</a></strong> by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe<br />
<a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=robert%20johnson%20complete%20recordings%20columbia&amp;index=.GH#focus">The Complete Recordings</a>: Robert Johnson<br />
&quot;Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell&quot; by <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=levertov,%20denise&amp;index=.AH#focus">Denise Levertov</a>&nbsp;<br />
<strong><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=doctor%20faustus%20christopher%20marlowe%20sylvan%20barnet&amp;index=.GH#focus">Doctor Faustus</a></strong> by Christopher Marlowe<br />
<strong><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu%=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=paradise%20lost%20an%20authoritative%20edition&amp;index=.GH#focus">Paradise Lost</a></strong> by John Milton<img align="right" alt="Cover Art: Phaidon Editions: Bosch" height="137" hspace="3" src="http://www.syndetics.com/index.aspx?type=xw12&amp;isbn=9780714839745/LC.GIF&amp;client=harrisp&amp;upc=&amp;oclc=" width="100" /><br />
<strong>Satan Says</strong> by <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=olds,%20sharon&amp;index=.AH#focus">Sharon Olds</a>&nbsp;<br />
<strong>A Season in Hell </strong>by Arthur Rimbaud (from <strong><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=Rimbaud%20complete%20arthur%20rimbaud&amp;index=.GH#focus">Rimbaud Complete</a></strong>)<br />
<a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=phaidon&amp;index=.GH#focus">Phaidon</a> edition&nbsp;<strong><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=bosch%20laurinda%20dixon&amp;index=.GH#focus">Bosch</a></strong>&nbsp;by Laurinda Dixon<br />
<a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=the%20inferno%20sound%20recording%20from%20the%20divine%2%20comedy&amp;index=.GH">Sound recordings</a> of the Divine Comedy</p>
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For what it&#39;s worth:&nbsp;Hell to me would be an eternity spent with that perfect word squatting at the base of your skull, just beyond reach of your pen. As always, comments, suggestions for future posts and your ideas about Heaven, Hell and all points in between are gratefully accepted.</p>
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<script type='text/javascript'>stLight.options({publisher:''});</script>http://www.hcpl.net/content/dealing-devil-and-other-ill-advised-undertakings#commentsA Season in HellArthur RimbaudAuthor of all sinsAzazelBaalBaphometBeezlebubBelialbook of jobChristopher MarloweDante AlighieriDenise LevertovDoctor FaustusEl DiabloFather of liesFaustGoetheHart CraneJohn MiltonJoseph BrodskyLuciferMephistophelesMolochOld ClootsOld NickOld ScratchParadise LostPoetryPrince of DarknessRobert JohnsonSatanSharon OldsSon of PerditionThe Divine ComedyThe Eternal TricksterThe TempterWed, 17 Mar 2010 14:23:34 +0000David Cherry3719 at http://www.hcpl.net